There are now deer on the grouse moor. And in my black grouse blog.

Roe deer enter the grouse moor from a nearby area of Forestry Commission land, and they are one of the great bonuses of my project.

Seeing their white bottoms bouncing away in the distance is not only a fantastic sight, but it also sets my saliva glands working on overdrive.

As far as I am concerned, roe fillet served with potatoes dauphinoise and broccoli is the finest meal available to mortal men, so it was with hot anticipation that I headed up to the farm on Tuesday with my friend Richard in the hope of bringing something back for the pot.

Richard is setting up a business hand loading custom ammunition for extreme accuracy, and some of the shots I have seen him take have been stunning.

With no cover for stalking and challenging cross winds rippling over the bogs, long shots on the moor are standard.

Sure enough, after an hour lying out on a rocky outcrop, we spotted a nice buck at 1,000 yards.

I had the thrill of watching Richard stalk the distant shape from my vantage point, and when the shot was fired, he had folded up the bipod and stood before the sound reached me.

We were then faced with the problem of lugging the buck back to the car across two miles of bog, but with snipe drumming overhead in the twilight, it was actually a real pleasure.

Every now and again, single grouse cocks leaped out of the heather to cackle at us.

Now the hens are brooding, the pressure is on to do as much damage to the local vermin population as possible.

The next month is when breeding grouse are at their most vulnerable, and if crows, foxes or stoats get the upper hand, all will be lost.

The views expressed on Patrick Laurie's blog are the author's and not the views of Shooting Gazette, ShootingUK, IPC Media or its employees.

www.gallowayfarm.wordpress.com

I'm fishing in the Caithness. But I'm not taking a break from this black grouse blog.

I'm in the furthest reaches of northern Caithness to be exact, and when I found out that I could drop in and see the capercaillie lek at Abernethy forest en route from Galloway, I jumped at the chance.

Abernethy forest contains some of the last ancient Caledonian pine woodlands in Scotland, and it is now one of a handful of places in the country where you can reliably encounter a “caper lek”.

Capercaillie cocks are about the same size as a black labrador.

They are so big that when I saw one feeding on blaeberry shoots, I was convinced that dinosaurs still roamed the earth.

He was squatting on a thick mound of blaeberry with his massive head hunched into his shoulders like a hen on steroids.

Then he came to life. He had sensed another cock bird encroaching on his patch and he was not for turning.

With surprising agility, he hopped between the tussocks of heather and engaged his rival.

The two gargantuan birds squared up to one another, stretching their necks and bristling their beards, dragging their drooping wings through the heather.

Although they never actually came to blows, their fearsome movements made any potential combat seem like a lethal activity.

Hooked beaks and jagged neck feathers made the posturing birds look like a pair of medieval armour smashing weapons, and when they began to wander apart again, it was almost a relief that no blood had been spilled.

I only know of one person who has shot driven capercaillie and he described the experience as "shooting at flying fortresses".

As the birds came roaring through the woods, he wasn't sure whether to stand his ground or hide behind a tree.

Having now seen them for myself, I think I know how he felt.

The views expressed on Patrick Laurie's blog are the author's and not the views of Shooting Gazette, ShootingUK, IPC Media or its employees.

www.gallowayfarm.wordpress.com

.....with birds on the grouse shoot.

A gradual build up of summer visitors started in the first week of March when I heard a lonely curlew calling from the bog in front of the farmhouse.

The solitary whining song has now built to a crescendo, and I already know of 18 pairs nesting on the low ground below the moor.

Skylarks and meadow pipits seemed to fall out of thin air towards the end of March, closely followed by stonechats, wheatears and whinchats, and they all contribute a new element to the farm as a whole.

It seems impossible that just a few weeks ago, the only visible birds were fieldfares and starlings, and their departure has unplugged a flow of new arrivals.

Snipe and woodcock are present all year round, but as soon as the winter woodcock vanished, snipe in fluttering abundance came bursting out of the secretive undergrowth to drum and squeak high up overhead.

Now there are lapwings and oystercatchers and nesting gulls in the heather.

The trees are vibrating with green and greater spotted woodpeckers and singing cuckoos seesaw through it unashamedly.

When I started the project, I was ignorant of all but the most obvious bird species, but one of the first things I learned as a moorland keeper was the importance of knowing and understanding how every species interlocks with its neighbours.

Grouse belong in the centre of an enormous web of relationships, and it is energy wasted trying to help them without first understanding it.

It sometimes feels like an impossible challenge to learn how this unique moorland balance is achieved, but it's certainly a lot of fun trying.

The views expressed on Patrick Laurie's blog are the author's and not the views of Shooting Gazette, ShootingUK, IPC Media or its employees.

www.gallowayfarm.wordpress.com